PC Gamer (US Edition) February 2022

Sometimes, the best thing ever is taking a trip to somewhere horrible. In games, at least. Whether it’s a barren wasteland, scorched post-apocalypse, or literal Hell, we love a grim digital world. The irradiated wilderness that is the Zone is one of our favorites. So it’s a thrill that not only is STALKER making its way back to our screens, its new entry is a true open world—bigger, bleaker, and more dangerous than ever before. Read on, and discover a place where even the deer can kill you… robin.valentine@futurenet.com ROBIN VALENTINE Twitter @robinlvalentine This month Stared deep into the Orb. The Orb is light! The Orb is life! All hail the Orb! TALK TO PC GAMER Have your say! Email us at letters@pcgamer.com…

TYLER COLP Twitter Twitter @tylercolp This month Can a team really include two Tylers? Thanks to our latest addition, we’re about to find out. Exciting. FRASER BROWN Twitter @FraserIBrown This month Fought through agonising tooth pain to bring you yet another historical strategy game article. CHRIS LIVINGSTON Twitter @screencuisine This month Had a blast writing our STALKER 2 feature. He was practically glowing. NAT CLAYTON Twitter @its_natclayton This month Visited a real-life Witcher bar, and drank enough ‘potions’ to suffer some serious debuffs.…

Rockstar launched Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy on November 11, 2020, just over 20 years after the launch of GTA III: One of the most important games in history. There were high expectations. But what no one expected was a catastrophe. The GTA Trilogy launched and, a few hours later, the Rockstar Games Launcher went down and the games were pulled from sale. The launcher came back a day later but the Trilogy remained unavailable to play or purchase for three days. Rockstar said the Trilogy was, “Unavailable to play or purchase as we remove files unintentionally included in these versions.” This was one problem. The launch Trilogy included a bunch of unlicensed music tracks and in-code developer comments. Even more unbelievably, some modders found the code for the infamous Hot…

HIGHS Kasparov plays Hearthstone PCG spoke to former world chess champ Garry Kasparov, “Yes, I do play Hearthstone. I’m diamond five!” Surprise Halo Microsoft announced an early launch for Halo Infinite multiplayer. So long Bowser Nintendo sued a 52 year-old Canadian man who was selling emulators. His name? Gary Bowser… LOWS Premium Access Many ‘premium’ games are now launching with early access weeks: But only if you’ve bought a deluxe or ultimate edition. This sucks. Squid name Streamer SquidGame got a lot of grief over their name, picked in 2010. NFT rush EA, Epic, and Ubisoft are among the big-hitters declaring their interest in NFTs.…

When a post praising the thousands upon thousands of game walkthrough maps created by a GameFAQs poster named StarFighters76 circulated on Twitter, the astounded responses weren’t only from people seeing them for the first time. Tons of replies were from players who’d used his maps before, but had no idea just how many he’d created. “These maps have gotten me out of SO MANY jams bro,” says one. “Shout if you’ve been using these maps for the FF Pixel Remasters,” says another. The collection of over 3,500 maps that StarFighters76 has created is impressive, but the number of players he’s helped through more than 300 games may be even more so. For nearly 20 years, StarFighters76 has been posting maps to GameFAQs, one of the few surviving institutions from the’90s era…

MEAT BOY There are dozens of Flash projects in Ed McMillen’s back catalogue, many of them disgustingly gory, but only this one spawned the defining precision platformer of the’00s. VVVVVV From previous column guest Terry Cavanagh, this gravity-flipping adventure paints with simple colors—both in its garish maps and emotive characters—to quite extraordinary effect. CELESTE Now known as Celeste Classic, this journey up a mountain with a girl who can only jump and dash became the basis for a superb meditation on anxiety. Sounds unlikely, I know.…